


JWP 2020 #8: Memento Flores

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Memory, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: "Violets. Violets, a ha’penny a bunch.”  Written for JWP #8 over on Watson's Woes.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Watson's Woes JWP Collection: 2020





	JWP 2020 #8: Memento Flores

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : This is an odd little snippet with speculation about Holmes' earliest days investigating in London, among other things. Not much plot here, and possibly uncharacteristic sentiment. And written in a huge rush. You have been warned.
> 
>  **Prompt** : A Floral Bouquet: Let anything involving flowers inspire you today. Wedding bouquet, funeral wreath, hay fever - all of flora is yours to explore!

“Violets. Violets, a ha’penny a bunch.”

The voice was soft, hardly audible despite her best efforts. Watson heard her nonetheless. He turned towards the gap-toothed child and smiled. I could tell that he would soon have a double bunch of violets to give to Mrs Hudson.

I heard her too, but her voice did not make me reach for my pocket. Instead it reached into my memory, reminding me of the very first time I’d taken heed of a flower-selling child here in London. She’d been a scrap of a girl, too, a little older than this one, a little more lively, dark eyes sparkling in a grimy, sharp-boned face as she talked one person after another into buying her posies.

I’d seen all that, but I still might not have stopped to think twice if it had not been for the violets. _Violet_. 

For all my powers of observation that should have told me here was a sharp pair of eyes and a mind well able to take advantage of opportunities, it was the name that made me consider whether this bit of a child might not be a watcher I could hire. I needed eyes on a particular establishment. No one would notice this London slum-child selling flowers.

In a sense, little May was my very first Irregular. She helped me that day, and a few other times. But I was just starting out then, and the work was infrequent. By the time I next had cause to want eyes in that neighborhood, violets were out of season, and May wasn’t on her corner. I never saw her again.

My hand reached for my pocket after all. “A bunch for me too, if you please.”

I’d take a walk later in the day and leave the flowers at a particular corner. No one would see me do it. Someone else would undoubtedly pick them up. An ephemeral tribute to the memory of a child and to the namesake that helped me see the possibilities in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 8, 2020.


End file.
